It’s easy to overstate Egyptian enthusiasm for democracy. “Middle class Egyptians want free speech and fair elections. But the middle class in Egypt is very small. There are more than three times as many illiterates as there are college graduates… "’A population that was convinced just two months ago that sharks in the Red Sea were implanted by the Israeli Intelligence Services is hardly at a stage of creating a liberal democracy in Egypt,’ Egyptian student Sam Tadros said in an email to Clarice Feldman of the American Thinker."’Egypt lacks the sort of political culture that can sustain a liberal democratic regime,’ Amr Bargisi, a leader of the Egyptian Union of Liberal Youth, told the Wall Street Journal. "Without knowledge of the likes of Locke and Burke, Hamilton and Jefferson, my country is doomed to either unbridled radicalism or continued repression.’"High prices, high risk – Jack Kelly, P I T T S B U R G H P O S T - G A Z E T T E

And as of today: Mubarak may be about to step down, as demanded by the people in Tahrir Square. But it seems with army leaders saying the military would “make sure all their demands are met,”—topmost among these being the now-achieved [will he, won’t he?] removal of Mubarak—that a military coup may already be a fait accompli? A Military Coup in Cairo? – Andrew Sullivan, T H E A T L A N T I CMilitary Coup in Egypt? Mubarak May Be Stepping Down – T I M E

And after taking the wrong line on the Iranian people’s uprising, at least the Obama Administration has been decisive this time . . . Mark Steyn summarises: “The official U.S. position is that (Egyptian President Hosni) Mubarak needs to go immediately, he needs to stay indefinitely, he needs to stay for a bit and then go, he needs to stay for a bit longer and then go sooner rather than later, unless he decides to stay until September . . .”Transcript from Mark Steyn’s opening first-hour monologue on 7 Feb – Mark Steyn

The most compelling explanation for the marked shift in the fortunes of the poor is that they continued to respond, as they always had, to the world as they found it, but that we — meaning the not-poor and un-disadvantaged — had changed the rules of their world. Not of our world, just of theirs. The first effect of the new rules was to make it profitable for the poor to behave in the short term in ways that were destructive in the long term. Their second effect was to mask these long-term losses — to subsidize irretrievable mistakes. We tried to provide more for the poor and produced more poor instead. We tried to remove the barriers to escape from poverty, and inadvertently built a trap.- Charles Murray, Losing Ground [hat tip Anti Dismal]

Liberals everywhere talk about helping "at risk" youths, but they’re most quiet about the most at risk. Frankly, it doesn't get more "at risk" than being a youth in a culture of militant Islam…“It was a suicide attack by a 12-year-old bomber in school uniform,” top police officer Abdullah Khan said on the early morning attack [in which] thirty-one Army personnel were killed and 40 others injured . . .31 Pakistani soldiers killed in ‘schoolboy’ suicide attack – I N D I A N E X P R E S S

Here’s a decent BBC podcast for weekend listening: “Was the economic crisis caused by fundamental problems with the system rather than a mere failure of policy? Over two weeks, Analysis investigates two schools of economics with radical solutions. “This week, Jamie Whyte looks at the free market Austrian School of FA Hayek. The global recession has revived interest in this area of economics, even inspiring an educational rap video….”Radical Economics: Yo Hayek! – B B C A U D I O

“Partial privatization seems unlikely to be worse than the status quo - it just seems insufficiently better to be worth the hassle. If Key's going to take flack for any use of the P-word, it would have been nice if he'd have gone just a bit farther with it.”State versus Private Ownership – E R I C C R A M P T O N

How do you explain a culture? How do you explain a successful culture—and at the same time the reason for that culture being so widely despised? “Imagine a relatively small culture brimming with influential intellectuals (Ludwig von Mises, Ayn Rand, Baruch Spinoza, etc.), ground-breaking scientists (Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman, Jonas Salk, etc.) and highly successful businessmen (David Sarnoff, Michael Dell, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, etc.) And then imagine the punishment of that culture not for its faults, but for its values and virtues. It is punishment that occurred not just once, but throughout time. It continues to this day… “It sounds like the backdrop for an Ayn Rand novel. But this is not fiction, this is history. It is the story of the triumphs and tragedies of Jewish culture -- and their causes….”The Ultimate Cause of the Triumphs and Tragedies of Jewish Culture– C H A R L O T T E C A P I T A L I S T

If you’ve ever watched a modern American television show, you can’t help wondering about all those corpses lying around and wondering, “What would it be like to play a corpse?” A WSJ journo finds out.Playing Dead on TV Can Keep a Career on Life Support – W A L L S T R E E T J O U R N A L

Lying Muslims and Useful Idiots

For Muslims, ideological differences with others are taught not to be the root cause of violence and bloodshed because a human being's freedom to decide how to lead his or her personal life is an inviolable right found in basic Islamic tenets.

Uh, huh. Tell that to the relatives of the dead 14-year old girl in Bangladesh who was whipped to death by authorities for the 'crime' of being raped. Oh, wait. They won't care, because it was one of their own who perpetrated the crime, then informed the authorities about her 'sin'.

In Bangladesh a 14-year-old girl named Hena was raped by a 40-year-old man, Mahbub, who is described in a report as her “relative.” Apparently — the report is not clear on how this happened — the matter was brought to the attention of the sharia authorities in her village of Shariatpur. You’d think this was a good thing … except, in Islam, rape cannot be proved absent four witnesses — i.e., it’s virtually impossible to establish that what happened happened. That’s a dangerous thing for the victim — deadly dangerous in this instance — because if she has had sexual relations outside marriage but cannot prove she has been raped, she is deemed to have committed a grave sin. In Hena’s case, the sharia authorities ordered that she be given 100 lashes. The young girl never made it through 80; she fell unconscious and died from the whipping.

Sure, it would be easy to dismiss this incident as just another savage act by the savages who occupy an unfortunate amount of land in the world. That's not the point, at least not the main one. The point is that there is a deep – but by now very obvious — connection between barbarism like this and the ideology that makes them possible.

So long as useful idiots like those at The Washington Post continue to provide a neutral platform for these thugs, and for both parties to be allowed to pretend we all just have reasonable differences of opinion, this sort of thing will continue to plague those far outside Bangladesh.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Hone and Hide have a point

Hone Harawira and Rodney Hide may both have a point.

Both of them are at odds with law they’ve given their vote to. And both are blaming being in coalition for the problem.

Hone is complaining that what the Maori Party has got in return for going into coalition with National government isn’t worth what they’ve given away—and, specifically . Now, Tariana herself responds that Hone “has no respect for this [MMP] environment. He doesn’t have any respect for the coalition agreement that we all signed up to and that we all agreed to.”And she points out that when the Maori Party has only two ministers around a cabinet table of 22, then they will always have to give something away—as they did with the parts of the Foreshore and Seabed (Replacement) Bill that has got so far up Hone’s nose.

What Hone and Hide and Tariana are all describing is the process whereby minority coalition partners under MMP are buried when in Government—as virtually every coalition partner under MMP has been.

The Maori Party may escape the curse of the Alliance, NZ First, Mauri Pacific and Te Tawharau because even if they implode over the rumblings from Mt Harawira the Maori Party itself will always get deluded racists to vote for them in the racist seats in which they stand. But for the ACT Party, oblivion now beckons as inevitably as it did for its predecessors who made lapdogs of themselves.

But is it inevitable that minority parties under MMP will always face oblivion?

Not if they don’t go into coalition it isn’t.

It’s argued by the uninformed and unthinking that coalition and “confidence and supply” are necessary to give “stability” to government. These agreements work, these people say. Minor parties have to sign up to them.

What crawling, abject, self-serving nonsense.

If “confidence and supply” agreements have “worked,” then they have worked only for the larger party, which in every coalition formed to date has chewed up, swallowed then spat out its minor partners.

And they’ve hardly worked for New Zealand either, since some of the worst law we’ve seen in the last fifteen years has been either the product of a minor party (Sue Bradford’s tail wagging everyone’s anti-smacking dog, for just one example); been used to make a beard of the minor party (as Hone recognises has happened with Chris Finlayson’s Marin & Coastal Bill); or has been foisted on a minor-party minister in the hope and expectation that if things do go wrong it will bury them and not the major party (Auckland’s super-sized bureaucracy, for example, in which Rodney Hide invested his party’s dwindling political capital—and which he’s now lost altogether).

We’ve ended up in short not with good law, but with law that often even the law’s authors won’t stand behind.

So in that respect, signing up to coalitions and “confidence and supply” agreements are bad for New Zealand, bad for New Zealand law, and disastrous for the minor coalition partners themselves.

But still the dumbarses keep signing up to take the (short-term) baubles of office.

Is that they only thing a small political party can do?

No, it’s not. Instead, they could stand on their principles—if they had any.

Instead of signing up to either coalition or “confidence-and-supply” agreements,” they could make the cast-iron promise that as a party they would vote en bloc for any measure that moves in the direction of their principles without any new measures moving the other way. In the case of the Libertarianz, for example, they could promise support for any measure that moves towards more freedom (however small the move) just as long as there is no new coercion involved.

That would stability without the need for lapdogs, and more stability than we’ve seen in the past 15 years.

Because that’s a cast-iron promise that any major party could take to the bank-or, at least, to the Treasury benches. It would work as a “ratchet,” moving the country towards the minor party’s principles more effectively than having two ministers enjoying the baubles (and blame) of office.

And it would have every politician and every political journalist in the country assiduously studying what the minor party’s principles actually mean, so they’d understand enough about what was being promised to at least sound knowledgeable.

It’s a win-win for everyone, especially for minority coalition parties for whom coalition is just a death warrant for .

NZ HERALD: “Key Pledges State Service Shake-up” – The Prime Minister suggested he wants to cut government spending and borrowing, and address the welfare dependency problem . . .

THE DOCTOR SAYS: Finally, ten months out from an election, after two full years in government, John Key thinks it might be an idea to start delivering on his previous election promises. True, if the figures mentioned in this news article are accurate then Key has reduced public service numbers by 5%. A reasonable start, but that’s only about a 1.5% drop per year. And Key is asking government bureaucrats for advice on “streamlining the public service’s performance.” Does anyone really believe any self-respecting bureaucrat will suggest that his own department be downsized? (Do turkeys vote for Christmas?) The Prime Minister fails to ask this question of each and every government ministry, department, office, and ant farm: Does this arm of the state really need to exist at all? That gets to the heart of the matter. The purpose of the departments, offices and ant farms is not employment of drones—if that is the best argument the defenders of the grey ones can muster, then every over-staffed ant farm must go. A few years back the Libertarianz Party did an analysis on hundreds of these little empires and concluded that most of them can just be quietly shut down and wouldn’t even be missed. So do it, John! Why not start by giving all employees a twelve-month holiday to find a new job—and to see if anyone notices their absence. The one-off cost would be worth the long-term gain!

DOMPOST: “Pomare Turning Into A Ghost Town” – A crime-ridden gang-infested Lower Hutt slum owned largely by the state is being abandoned as people move out to safer and better suburbs . . .

THE DOCTOR SAYS: Margaret Thatcher had the answer to this problem: sell off the state’s housing at a heavily discounted rate to the people that live in them, thereby encouraging pride of ownership. The Libertarianz Party would go a few steps further: privatising the streets in favour of residents—allowing formation of secure communities that can shut out undesirable elements such as gangs and welfare parasites. In the meantime, Housing Minister Heatley should immediately sell the 53 vacant state houses in the area, even if this means moving them off site. He should also sell the tenanted homes out to private landlords who will be less tolerant of vandalism and neglect of their property.

THE DOCTOR SAYS: Oh dear. How sad. Never mind. Seriously though, this brings to mind the unfortunate error which prevented the Libertarianz Party from contesting the party vote in 2002 (showing up at the Electoral Office at the appointed time with forms and signatures, and cash, cheques and credit cards to submit them—but not the required bank cheque drawn on the party account. Bugger.) Because of that balls up, I almost feel sorry for the Greens – except that as Whale Oil points out, the tosser concerned (one Richard Leckinger, who will never be allowed to forget this) was not using either public transport or a bicycle made out of recycled cardboard to move around the electorate desperately seeking a signature, but a private vehicle powered by the despised emissions-spewing internal combustion engine!! Oh, the irony!

"Human happiness, and certainly human fecundity, are not as important as a wild and healthy planet. I know social scientists who remind me that people are part of nature, but it isn't true. Somewhere along the line — at about a billion years ago, maybe half that — we quit the contract and became a cancer. We have become a plague upon ourselves and upon the Earth. . . " Until such time as Homo sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along."

- David Graber, research biologist and greenie, relating his vision for the future of the human race

It was what George Bush and his neo-cons wanted to export to the Middle East. Their “Forward Strategy for Freedom” called for the exportation by force of democracy to the Middle East.

They succeeded.

And the people of the Middle East turned out in droves to vote for the wolves.

Democracy, said the neo-cons, would bring freedom and security to the Middle East. Instead, it unleashed a whirlwind.

Democracy in Iraq gave the people an Islamic constitution and a regime that favours Tehran.

Democracy in Palestine delivered a landslide victory to the Iranian-backed Hamas—who began establishing a totalitarian Islamist regime and unleashing a wave of suicide bombings, before collapsing into a civil war with Fatah.

Democracy in Lebanon handed control of Lebanon to the Iranian-backed Hezbollah--who almost immediately started launching rockets into Israel, beginning a month-long war.

And what will democracy in Egypt bring Well, guess . . .

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei has already called for Egyptians to rise up and install an Islamic state.

Would a regime mandating shariah law and genital mutilation represent “freedom” for Egyptian men and women? Would its installation bring “security” to the Middle East?

Monday, February 07, 2011

Great news for the unemployed!!

Q: What do you do when you have a whole lot of things left on your shelf that you simply can’t sell?

A: You raise the price.

If that sounds counter-intuitive, or even dumb, that’s because it is.

Yet that’s precisely what New Zealand’s sellers of labour have just gone and done. At a time when unemployment is going up and more and more would-be labourers are being left on the shelf, they’ve gone and raised the price of their labour. Or rather, they’ve had it raised for them.

It’s not like they raised it by mistake, either. They did this before, right at the very start of this Great Recession, right along with the abolition of Youth Rates—leading to the truly unsurprising result that unemployment among those looking for unskilled work or “starter jobs” has continued to rise, with more than one-in four youngsters aged 15-19 now unable to get started on the employment ladder; more than one-in-six Maori; and more than half of the single parents.

Well done John Boy. Well done Kate Wilkinson. You dumbarses.

Not only do you make it more difficult for low-income job-hunters to get the start, by raising costs to the country’s employers (or, equally, by reducing the number they can employ for the same money) you also make it more difficult to raise productivity. Which is where real wage rises really come from, not from wishful thinking rubber stamped by half-wit politicians.

Now if Hone had any balls, or any brains, instead of several more weeks of grandstanding he’d be hammering this racist imposition on Maori employment for all he’s worth. He’d be pointing out

Is there any reason for the ACT Party to still exist?

Is there any reason for the ACT Party to still exist?

I ask because, in its formative days, ACT’s founding members talked about the importance of upholding the interests of consumers and taxpayers; they made loud noises about drastically shrinking government, both central and local; they enshrined found principles (now long forgotten) declaring “that individuals are the rightful owners of their own lives and therefore have inherent rights and responsibilities, and that the proper purpose of Government is to protect such rights and not to assume such responsibilities.”

Recent
Comments

Ayn Rand could hardly be called influential, and Mises is borderline at best (though he's on far stronger footing than Rand). Austrian economics is fringe, and you'd have to be delusional to think that Atlas Shrugged took the world by storm. This is true regardless of one's opinion of either of those people.

Evidence: Libertarianz is the only party whose senior members routinely cite Rand and Mises as influences, and they garnered a grand total of 1,176 votes out of 2,376,480 in the most recent election.

If the author was looking for influential right-wingers, she'd be on stronger ground if she mentioned Nozick. If she was just trying to make a point about Jewish people, one can hardly deny that Marx was/is influential.
“Middle class Egyptians want free speech and fair elections. But the middle class in Egypt is very small. There are more than three times as many illiterates as there are college graduates…"

I knew an Egyptian middle class college graduate. He was consumed by an intense hatred for Israel. The only time I saw him happy was the anniversary of some date where some Israelis had been killed by some Arabs (cant remember the specifics of that event).
I appreciate the hat-tip! Just thought I'd mention that the link isn't working though since you've accidentally put your own website in front of the address, it should be http://autismandoughtisms.wordpress.com/
Go look at the "middle class intellectuals" on display at public address. Choose any thread on foreign politics (Egyptian ones are good this week) and count how many comments it takes to devolve into virulent America hating. Intellect (or supposed intellect) and a nice middle-class upbringing are no guarantee of sense, rather you'll just get a more prosaic way of hating.
"you'd have to be delusional to think that Atlas Shrugged took the world by storm."

I don't know what context you drew the quote from, but if you're referring to the U.S., Rand is very influential, cited in dozens of major magazines and on websites with enormous audiences. Her books continue to sell in the thousands monthly. She is decidedly mainstream (in awareness) now.
It's Time + Money, not Time x Money. So the workings from there are moot.
Lying Muslims and Useful Idiots
Hone and Hide have a point
And one would argue this is the way MMP is actually supposed to work, i.e. collaboration on individual issues, based on their substance, not on ideological dogma, and the subsequent hammering out of overall coalition deals. Such an approach would dramatically limit parliament's opportunity and scope to create legislation as it would bog the process down to deal with far greater level of detail.This method would however require a much stricter separation of legislature and executive, as well as a much better systems of principles and controls between the government branches, and between government and individual power, i.e. a solid constitution.

Bez
ACT has no ministers around the cabinet table. They are both ministers outside cabinet.
Trouble with collabaration on individual items is you may get nothing done unless a party with 3% support decides to. Whichever way you go deals have to be done under MMP.I have some sympathy for Hide as in principal devolving power to its lowest level is good practice and right to let Auckland decide if they want maori representation.He has been blind sided by the stupidity of Auckland voting in Brown when there were enough signs prior to the vote on what directions he takes and his attitude towards accountability.
David, that's part of my point, it's a good thing if government has all sorts of problems "getting things done", the less they "get done" the better it tends to be for the general populace....In my view, "doing things" that only garner the support of 51% is a clear sign that these things are not really worth doing anyway.
"If “confidence and supply” agreements have “worked,” then they have worked only for the larger party, which in every coalition formed to date has chewed up, swallowed then spat out its minor partners."

...and then in the next paragraph...

"since some of the worst law we’ve seen in the last fifteen years has been either the product of a minor party (Sue Bradford’s tail wagging everyone’s anti-smacking dog"

Can't be both, can it?
Public building, in Bisaccia, Italy, 1983 – Aldo Loris Rossi
I am all FOR unusual architecture, but this one just doesnt come off for some reason
I associate the feel with JG Ballard. Ruins, post-civilisation, Empty cracked concrete swimming pools..
Looks like a 'castle' signature, perhaps for the urban village to survive in post-catastrophic event? A survivalist bunker?
Is that the sonic weapon from Atlas Shrugged sitting on the roof being used as an anti-aircraft gun?
That hideous thing looks as though it belongs in Mos Eisley.
DOWN TO THE DOCTOR’S: Worthless pledges & no-go neighbourhoodsThe Libertarianz Party would go a few steps further: privatising the streets in favour of residents—allowing formation of secure communities that can shut out undesirable elements such as gangs and welfare parasites.

Snow Crash-style?A few years back the Libertarianz Party did an analysis on hundreds of these little empires and concluded that most of them can just be quietly shut down and wouldn’t even be missed. So do it, John!

Shut down the Customs Service? Now I'm in favour of open borders as much as the next guy, but there are serious biosecurity implications here. One person could destroy the livelihoods (and property) of thousands or tens of thousands of people, and even start a famine, simply by carrying a foreign hitch-hiker in their briefcase. How would your common law deal with that?
@Bizarro:

The book you mention (from what I can gather from the Wikipedia summary) describes a state of near anarchy, along with hyperinflation. Libz advocate small government which, if you take the time to check out our policies, would still be involved in national defence and maintaining law and order, and would stop the printing of fiat money and the setting of artificial interest rates by a central bank (which is what causes inflation).

Snow Crash is a nightmarish society with little or no constitutional protection of individual rights - a Somalian situation. No thanks.
The element of the fictional society in the book I was referring to was the presence of "burbclaves": sovereign neighbourhoods operated by private organisations who sell or lease houses to residents who agree to abide by the rules. Most of the respectable burbclave franchises have rules designed to keep out "undesirable elements". Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong, for example, has a ban on guns, and anybody who attempts to enter a Hong Kong neighbourhood with a firearm has it seized by robotic guards. The New South Africa franchise has a policy against non-whites.

Also, PC: did my comment about Customs get deleted, held up in a moderation queue, or did I just not submit it when I thought I had?
@Bizarrro: "Shut down the Customs Service?"

Sure, why not.Biosecurity Bureaucracy Banished
PC, I think that Ken's view is different. A good chat with him on the way to Whangaumu last month and his views is that it is vital that bio-security must be there since the government must have the monopoly on law & order. Bio-security is just an extension of that monopoly, whether it comes under the police or they exist as a different department altogether.

The conversation started, when I brought up the subject, that the Aussie had banned our NZ apples for almost 7 decades for bio-security reasons and the NZ govt is whining about it. The question I put forward to Ken is, if the Aussie govt just allows private sellers & buyers of apples to trade with no restriction, then it is guaranteed that some buyers in Aussie, would have allowed the NZ apples to be exported over there, while others fear that this unrestricted trade will cause damage to their Aussie apple industry in general? The reason for the general ban imposed by the Aussie govt is to protect the properties of other growers if our so called insect-infested/diseased apples are being exported over there.

Does Ken have a point?
@Bizarro: The burbclaves idea is great and I would endorse it, but as mentioned earlier I'm not so keen on other aspects of the former USA in Snow Crash.

I guess gated communities would come fairly close to qualifying as burbclaves.
with regards to the Biosecurity issue here is my take on it:

lets say that someone imported a shipment of kiwifruit and the shipment contained some pests that would damage the local industry in the country and cause loss to business. It would be legitimate for the government to step in and ban the shipment from entry. In this case, there is risk to property from the pests.

Note: This does not mean that government has a legitimate role in screening everything and anyone who enters the country or travels around. I think someone would have to make a charge that there was a specific risk, and give some evidence—then and only then could police forces or whatever ban the shipment.

This is a tough question, I think—it's really one for a philosopher of law, which I'm not.
Merely having the person that introduces a new pest/disease sued/imprisoned would not be sufficient for (at least) three reasons:

1. You may not be able to trace the introduced pest/disease to the person that introduced it.

2. They may not have any money, so suing them wouldn't reap any real amount of compensation for the many millions of dollars lost.

3. If the person were to be prosecuted and imprisoned after introducing a disease/pest, it wouldn't change the fact that the disease or pest had already been introduced...

For these reasons, border bio security is a necessary part of Government.
@FF, @David: I agree these are a matter for government. My issue however is whether they are necessarily a matter for a government department--one that specialises in going through your personal possessions.

I say not. I say hold the carriers themselves legally responsible (i.e., the airlines, shippers etc.), who might be expected to wish to keep their businesses solvent.

The recent reintroduction of myxamatosis suggests in any case that any one with even half a brain can easily outwit a govt dept.

And the disgraceful banning of NZ apples betrays how easily a govt dept can turn an issue of alleged biosecurity into one of outright and indefensible protectionism.
@Michael: I give a longer argument on that point at the link given in the comments above.
Advance Australia Not-So-Fair
It's only weather. Unlike Kiwis, we don't regard a bit of wind and flooding as Armageddon.After all, we've had a while to get used to it. ;)We can simply pick up our rubbish and dispose of it--you lot elect it to rule over you.
Careful KG when talking about rubbish rulers. I could name a few times the Ozzies have made kiwi-scale mistakes at the ballot box, starting with Fanta Pants, KRudd gets a Special Mention, Keating anyone?

Granted, nobody quite so blatantly communist and corrupt (apologies for tautology) as Klarkula, but I think I've made my point.
True, GG.:(You know, it's only since the advent of mass media that a big has been made of floods and droughts. Third-rate journos have managed to convince people that fairly ordinary weather events are the end of the world and a lot of fools are sucked in by it.In the past, people simply endured, rebuilt and got on with their lives.
"big deal" that should be.
Broadford Farm Pavilion, Idaho, by Lake|Flato Architects
Could never have that here with our pool fencing regulations.
No spouting, corrugated roof, great light. It would be sheer therapy to listen to summer rain on the iron and watch it being carried to fall away in a hundred runnel formed spouts.

The simpler pleasures of life...

George
It's beautiful, but the pool looks so far away from the house. I'd probably almost never bother walking over there.

I know it sounds like laziness, it's not a matter of laziness; psychological distance-boundaries are just very, very real, and should be factored into home design.
Sure looks like a wonderful getaway place, assuming its not too cold there! But like Kiwiwit said, it would be kinda scary with out any type of aluminum pool fence to keep stray animals or humans out!-Jackie
Wow. So simple.
Very good article.. Congrats to everyone who are involved with this project.Don't worry about trying so hard, the best things come when you least expect them to!just outstanding!!
Democracy is not freedom: An Egyptian case study [updated]
Are you arguing for benign dictatorship?
I would feel sympathized with the Egyptian people if they want freedom as we do enjoy here in the West and that should be supported. However, if their idea of freedom is to install a sharia-law based system of government, then I have no sympathy for them. I would just sit back and do nothing and let dictators rule them, because their belief system suited dictatorship.
"Are you arguing for benign dictatorship?"

Check the first link.

Also look up tyranny of democracy. Might come in handy if 60% of voters want all national party members executed. Or more likely if in Egypt they want to expel say all Christians.
the west will have to prepare for a flood of Christian refugees from Egypt. 8 million people will have the option of oppression, imprisonment or execution if they choose to stay.At least one would hope that the Christian refugees would not bring Jihad with them.
This is exactly the point made by Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Facebook yesterday - for Egyptian women it may come down to deciding between dictatorship and genital mutilation. Not a pleasant choice. Refer http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MB02Ak01.html
I agree with most of your ideas here, again. But I disagree with the way you are offering your views, again.

In a way I guess that your opinion is that Egyptians needs an "intellectual" and "cultural" revolution for the highway to freedom. I am still with you on that one. But for me it is clearly exactly the same here :

http://blackchristiannews.com/news/images/christian_nation.jpg

78% of American are Christians. More than 50% of New Zelanders are Crhistians.

Yes, Egyptians are not the only ones. Still a lot to do IN OUR OWN COUNTRIES if you believe in borders...
Sandrine,

Are you attempting to tie freedom to religion?

KSKiwi.
I had to think of this post when I read the following today:

"More than fifty per cent of Wellingtonians believe the city's "Golden Mile" of shopping streets should be smokefree, an Otago University study has found"

Under democracy a smoking ban will be imposed.

Next they might vote indeed to exterminate all rich people and divide their cash among the needy.
Hi there.

It sounds like I need to clarify a bit my previous message. What I am implying here is that:

There is a big (well, I'll even agree on a huge) risk of this “democratic” revolution resulting in a Islamic regime: True.Such an Islamic regime would be the opposite of freedom for the Egyptian people, hence the hypocrite use of the word “democracy” as a synonym for freedom: True.Considering it a lost cause, and implicitly blaming it to the “intellectual average of the Egyptian people (and other Muslim Peoples)” which I think you do in this post: Wrong.

The Muslim Brotherhood is indeed the most-organised, or even the only organised opposition force. But that does not mean that all opponents are advocate of Islamic terror, the same way all Palestinians, Irakians, [...insert here the names resulting from a Google search with the words “USA-oil-muslim-war”...] are not.

Real partisans of freedom should work to help these opponents; if one looks ( with the bias in occidental media that is not that easy indeed), one can realise that heaps of them are not religious. Attacking verbally the Egyptian people, and even the whole Arabic civilisation as a whole, like this post (and IMHO too many others on this blog) is not helping them. It actually does this opposite, by giving weapons to the Islamists, the same way US and other Gvts do when giving their support to Moubbarak.

As for the tie with Religion, there is one indeed, but the tie is not with freedom, but against Freedom. Religion is a tool used by those who oppose Freedom, i.e. those who want power. My analogy meant that the use of religion (or race, skin colour, etc) as a argument for power-hungry freedom-hating politicians is not proper to the Arabic people, contrary to what your post implies:The MuslimBrotherhood will trigger hatred against Christians and Jews by blaming all the problems of Egyptians on them, the same way GWBush has been using the word “God” in all his discourses to trigger the “Christian Brotherhood of America hatred against Muslims”, or Sarkozy, Hortefeux and their colleagues are triggering French hatred against Roms and other immigrates...I will try not to abide to Godwinn's law...but I could;-)You see the point?
So what's the answer? The only country (I think) in the world that was actually founded on something resembling true liberty-based principles, that explicitly granted people the means to overthrow bad government if need be, with a relatively educated population, that saw the powerful and massive benefits of increased wealth production of such a system, was not able to prevent its own slide into an insane mess of interventionism, socialism, liberty and market-crushing over-regulationism etc. (I'm speaking of course of the US, and the liberty-destruction and over-regulationism gets worse by the day there.) How can any other country manage to maintain liberty? It's an honest question - what are the solutions? Other than to just keep trying to educate people.
"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."

A Little Book in C major (1916) (later published in A Mencken Crestomathy (1949).
@Anonymous,

I share a lot of your questions.

Here are some of my small answers. I believe in education. In my opinion this is the only key.

To meet the point of a global but healthy education that we definitely need to live in Freedom and Respect, it does not require to blame constantly the others but to act morally when we think we can or need to. We are too evolved to wallow ourselves in a never ending and sterile criticism nor to play with binary propagandas.

So yes, I believe in Education, and certainly not in a state/industry funded education (my children both attend classes in a Montessori school, which cost me an eye but I am not complaining, I am glad not to spend my money in buying any TV, any car, any Iphone... and I am not ready to own a house either or to go to Fiji for holidays, because yes I have ethical, logical, and human priorities). I greatly defend industrial and technological progresses in an enlighten and meaningful way (certainly not in the way things are happening today). I believe in interactions between people, in the community sense, in an active but non-compulsory and non-taxes funded help between people. I believe in the Human race on Earth, not in borders nor xenophobia.

All governments are evil or will end as evil because they are only motivated by the seek of power from some sick individuals (or individuals who will become sick in this systemic process) - no wonder on why good and healthy people are not seeking for power nor winning enough electoral votes).

Governance is a mass and world scale gangsterism organisation (religion is a part of it, as a fantastic and efficient propaganda tool). All democratic systems have failed and will because they are built on a wrong equation. People must be at the centre of this equation with a basic but universal law : the non-aggression principle. Where I feared on Anarchy yesterday, I now believe in with my greatest hope. Of course Anarchy would be an open door for gangsterism either, but certainly not like at the actual scale of our actual world which allows or encourages mass murders and state funded genocides ! I believe in the assertion : ‘Liberty is not the daughter but the mother of Order’ and in the spontaneous order which rules our universe. But to reach Anarchy, we must educate ourselves and the others. Yes.
When I was a student 10 years ago, I experienced a physical aggression (involving a firearm) - I lived in Grenoble in France, where the riots happened last year). I was extremely scared. The man in front of me was French but born from Algerian natives. I managed to talk, I tried to touch his heart and his soul, just by talking, and talking. I did not show any fear and tried to explain him that he was not a bad guy for me and that I was ready to help him to save my life. He took my cash and fled away. Finally two hours later I saw him again, alone, in the street. I felt more secure this time because they were many people in the street. I thought he would run and hide. But no, he came to me and gave me back the change, he bought some cigarettes with some of my cash. And then he said thank you. Thank you for giving me a chance and not judging me. He said he would do something may be, that he was not happy of his condition. I just answered to him : "Do not trust the media, I am not the only one in this fucking country who believes in you. You are acting the way you act because you feel like you have no choice, but it is untrue, you must realise that, you have a gift for our world in yourself". May be he is still an asshole today. But may be he is not. However, I have never ever in my life blamed the Algerian kids in the French streets. Their behaviours are the result of a terrible condition that our government have greatly encouraged by a stigma and bad social urbanisations, and an inappropriate state education. These kids become what they are told to.

We can answers to these questions by human coalitions, by education on a day to day basis. We must throw away our sickened entertainments and meet the people around us. We have a fantastic level of technology, knowledge and scientific prowess. We should start to use the human reason. We need to raise proper individuality at its highest level, same for the self-confidence, and so creativity.

Western Christian countries are as blinded as Egyptian people are (or any other Muslim states). They are not operating on the same cultural and financial scheme, but this is it. Some of their people are no more barbarians than some of our people. We should not be blinded by decontextualized comparisons between the kind of weapons used in both sides. The results are exactly the same.

The whole world need to be educated indeed. But before blaming we should starts in front of our doors, with our neighbours, families and friends, with us ! We should stop to give that poisonous water to the mill. And then, may be we could pretend to be an example to the others.
@Sandrine: I agree with you on many points--especially that anarchy is simply an open door to gangsterism.

The undesirability of such a state can be illustrated by the enthusiasm with which people so "organised" will eagerly adopt anyone rather than the chaos of anarchy. This helps explain how eagerly after years of anarchy Afghanis once emnbraced the Taleban, and the Chinese Mao.

THe issue as regards Islamism is that in Egypt at least it is the only integrated intellectual opposition to the nationalism of Nasser/Sadat/Mubarak, so will almost inevitably replace it sa the ruling ethos.

I could only wish that there were a group in Egypt extolling reason, individualism and the importance of a constitutional republic enshrining those principles and chaining up the govt to uphold them, but it's just not there. (Or if it is, I certainly haven't seen it.)

Because most of the non-Islamists protesting in Cairo are not fighting FOR something at all, but simply fighting against the oppresssion of Mubarak. They want freedom from him, but could not say what that freedom would look like. That's the tragedy; that they have no ideology.

"A majority without an ideology is a helpless mob, to be taken over by anyone."

Like it or not, What they'll be taken over by is the Islamists--with an integrated ideology, and nine decades of organised and militant opposition under their belt.

It's not enough to say that they're entitled to "self-determination" -- to set in place a democracy with some new strong man at its head. Because nothing gives the majority to take away the rights of a minority.

It's not enough to hope that something good will come out of it all, that by some fluke of history political freedom might somehow arise. Because there's no no force in play from which that good might come, and way by which the majority voting away the rights of the minority can ever guarantee political freedom.

As you say, the only way political freedom can ever arise is by changing a culture. The most successful efforts in modern times of changing a culture by the degreee required in Egypt were carried out in post-war Germany and post-war Japan--and especially this last. But that took (first) the destruction of both countries' military capacity; and (second) an intelligently focussed expunging of the elements in the culture that had driven their headling rish to destruction--a targeted programme iof de-Nazification and de-Shintoism that succeeded beyond anyone's wildest dreams; and (third) the introduction of what, with some flaws, were constitutions that enshrined and protected individual rights.

I would love to be proved wrong, but nothing like that is going to happen in Egypt today.

CONTINUED IN PART TWO BELOW > > >
PART TWO:

Nothing in the Egyptian culture supports it; nothing now in America could export it -- as the Americans showed by their failure in Iraq.

Ayn Rand's discussion of the Algerian putsch and street protests in 1961 is straight to the point here:

"The people of Algiers marched through the streets of the city ... shouting: "We want peace! We want a government!"How are they to go about getting it?Through the years of civil war, they had been united, not by any political philosophy, but only by a racial issue. They were fighting, not for any program, but only against French rule. . .The people of Algeria and their various tribal chieftains ... are being taken over by a well-organized minority that did not appear on the scene until after the victory. That minority is led by Ben Bella and was armed by Soviet Russia.A majority without an ideology is a helpless mob, to be taken over by anyone...

"Political freedom requires much more than the people's wish. It requires an enormously complex knowledge of political theory and of how to implement it in practice.It took centuries of intellectual, philosophical development to achieve political freedom. It was a long struggle, stretching from Aristotle to John Locke to the Founding Fathers. The system they established was not based on unlimited majority but on its opposite: on individual rights, which were not to be alienated by majority vote or minority plotting. The individual was not left at the mercy of his neighbors or his leaders: the Constitutional system of checks and balances was scientifically devised to protect him from both.This was the great American achievement—and if concern for the actual welfare of other nations were our present leaders' motive, this is what we should have been teaching the world."

That America's present leaders are themselves utterly blind to the reasons for their country's achievements is just part of the tragedy here.

"[It is not enough to say] that no political knowledge is necessary—that [the American] system is only a matter of subjective preference—that any prehistorical form of tribal tyranny, gang rule, and slaughter will do just as well, with our sanction and support.It is thus that we encourage the spectacle of Algerian workers marching through the streets and shouting the demand: "Work, not blood!"—without knowing what great knowledge and virtue are required to achieve it.In the same way, in 1917, the Russian peasants were demanding: "Land and Freedom!" But Lenin and Stalin is what they got.In 1933, the Germans were demanding: "Room to live!" But what they got was Hitler.In 1793, the French were shouting: "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity!" What they got was Napoleon.In 1776, the Americans were proclaiming "The Rights of Man"—and, led by political philosophers, they achieved it.No revolution, no matter how justified, and no movement, no matter how popular, has ever succeeded without a political philosophy to guide it, to set its direction and goal"

That, I believe, describes as well the coming tragedy of Egypt.

In 2011 Egyptians are calling for "freedom," but what they will get instead (maybe not immediately, but before too long) will be the political philosophy of theocracy, and victory for the Muslim Brotherhood--with all that implies for them, and for the rest of the Middle East and the world.

And just to conclude, I agree with you that "Western Christian countries are as blinded as Egyptian people are (or any other Muslim states)."

The whole world does need to be educated in reason, freedom and capitalism-starting with our own front doors.

Isn't that why I show up here every day? ;^)
It's all very well being Not PC but being Non Factual is a different matter altogether.

Aside from the tiresome scaremongering exhibited by the post author, let's look at some of his "facts":

1. The new Iraqi government is naturally forming ties with its bigger neighbour, just as we do with Australia, but it is also forming strong ties with Turkey. The people of southern Iraq, especially, still remember the shelling they endured from the Iranians in the US sponsored Iran/Iraq war, so there is no need to get too carried away. Naturally, demonisation of Iran is implied in the post.

2. Hamas had abandoned the tactic of suicide bombings well before that election (recognising that it was an ultimately counterproductive tactic) and gave up all violence to take part in the election.

3.Hamas did not win in a landslide. It won a narrow majority of the overall vote tally, but the electoral system set up by Arafat to ensure the Fatah's success worked against Fatah in that case.

4. Hamas did not begin to establish a totalitarian Islamic regime. Its first act was to form a joint government with Fatah that was scuppered by the US, the EU and Israel.

5. There was no "collapse into civil war". The PA was trained and armed by the US, Jordan, Egypt and Israel to enact a coup against the legitimate Hamas government (by then taking refuge in its Gaza stronghold). Hamas got wind of it and took pre-emptive action which actually avoided what would have been a bloodbath

6. Hezbollah was part of the government, but a limited part because of the careful allocation of positions under their constitution. Hezbollah did not launch an attack on Israel. They captured IDF personnel who were in the habit of intruding into Lebanon to kill a few people here and there. Israel decided to launch that war for entirely different strategic reasons and got a bloody nose for its troubles.

Hezbollah was formed to resist the brutal Israeli occupation that began in 1982 and killed, by some reports, 30,000 Palestinian and Lebanese, virtually all civilians, including countless children (the enemy of the future, in Israel's eyes).

It arms itself for defence, not for offence. That would be laughable, considering the military imbalance.

Finally, it's a sad day when legitimate pleas for release from the grasp of ruthless US backed dictators and for the democracy we take for granted is likened to "mob rule."

Western arrogance personified.
rather than naively assume that this revolution will lead to a democratic Egypt (and so the U.S should stand by), or cynically assume that this is unquestionably an Islamist revolt that needs to be crushed (by supporting Mubarak and tyranny), the U.S. should simply do whatever needs doing to see that the revolt, in fact, leads to a secular and pluralistic society, which, believe it or not, many Egyptians would welcome.
Toad is not a "Green Party official blogger", Frog is.
I agree with @Luc Hansen.

Thanks PC for your answers. I will meditate on the anarchist subject and I hope we will have a lovely talk about it around a few beers (or a good bottle of French red wine) one of these days.

Indeed, you are doing a good job on this blog, thx, but you did not really answer to my real question about the "recurring pattern" of posts about "Muslims blindness" (when was the last time again you talked about the "evil Zionism" or the "Christian herd" ?).

You said : 'This helps explain how eagerly after years of anarchy Afghanis once emnbraced the Taleban, and the Chinese Mao.'

Really ? Could you detail a bit more ? I thought foreign occupation was describing better the situation than 'years of anarchy' : Afghanis in the 90's : USSR/Soviets and China before 49 : foreign backed Japan/English.
the Egyptians are as clueless about freedom as are the Saudis. They really don’t know what they want, but they are “against” Mubarak, that’s all, and it just isn’t enough. The American Revolutionaries were against the Crown, but also knew what they wanted, and had a philosophical base for what they wanted. Not knowing what they want, the Egyptians are likely to wind up with something much worse than Mubarak. There isn’t a major player in the power struggle going on in Egypt now who is in the least “pro-freedom” as we understand it. We had the past and modern “Tea Parties.” Have the Egyptians a “Hookah Party”? No. They may be living in the 21st century, but their mentalities are still medieval. They’re just looking for a pleasanter master.
Trevor

In my opinion, you are quite wrong.

If you followed the coverage, you would have found that it was the newly disaffected class common around much of the world, the unemployed middle class university graduates, who founded this peaceful revolution.

Not only do they speak English, they often speak it with an American accent. Today, in Egypt, the educated professionals, lawyers, doctors and others, as well as Trade Unions, went on strike and joined the protesters.

This is not an Islamic revolution. It's a revolution for freedom.

Not PC drags up the Iranian leaders comments as he tried to grab a share of the revolution, but he is irrelevant in Egypt. He won't decide Egypt's future. Not PC may as well go and find some Islamic jihadist in Indonesia or the Philipines saying the same thing as the Iranian leader, and then scream - See! Told ya so!! Be very afraid!

Why are us whiteys all so always afraid? Always scared of something. Even while cowering behind our nukes and drones.
@Luc, you draw distinctions between Muslim groups everywhere, but at the same time wish us to believe that all "us whiteys" think the same.

Clearly not.Not only do they speak English, they often speak it with an American accent. Today, in Egypt, the educated professionals, lawyers, doctors and others, as well as Trade Unions, went on strike and joined the protesters. This is not an Islamic revolution. It's a revolution for freedom.

doesn't matter what form the revolution is, what matters is what happens when the current government is displaced.

Why are us whiteys all so always afraid? Always scared of something. Even while cowering behind our nukes and drones.

I ain't a whitey.Not only do they speak English, they often speak it with an American accent.

That is a concrete-bound argument. By that logic, our current administration, Senate, and Obama's press harem are pro-freedom. Sudanese men have cell phones and text, and they still believed that they could be magically castrated by shaking a Westerner's hand.
Great news for the unemployed!!
They also released statistics showing that during the recession wages have actually risen. Why don't they trust their own statistics?
"People need a living wage." - Annette King.

Doesn't stop them taking ~16% of it though does it.
Does that mean the Irish government actually did something right for once? The minimum wage has been chopped by 11%, effective Feb 1. However, it's too little too late, methinks.
In the cultural capital of the Moslem world Egypt! 70% of “employed” work for the government. The govt just announced a 15% wage increase for public sector “workers”. Just like that!

New government bonds are being issued now to put the Egyptian economy into over drive. Egypt’s bonds are yielding 11%. Grab the yield while you can. It is all good. (Learning lots about this fantastic water way country.)

If such an important winner country like Egypt can do it why cant the NZ government issue bonds to support a $20 minimum wage here?
On the plus side, I doubt the quarter will do much harm relative to holding it constant. Could have been worse.
If that ladder was stable, it doesn't look like it would be very hard to climb it.
Paddy McCoy, an elderly Irish farmer, received a letter from the Department of Labour stating that he was suspected of not paying his employees the statutory minimum wages and that an inspector would be sent to the farm.

On the appointed day, the inspector turned up. “Tell me about your staff,” he asked of Paddy.

“Well,” said Paddy, “there is the farmhand. I pay him 240 a week and he has use of a free cottage.”

“That’s good,” said the inspector.

“Then there’s the housekeeper. She gets 190 a week, along with free board and lodging.”

“That sounds fine,” said the inspector.

Paddy went on. “There’s also the half-wit. He works a 16-hour day, does 90 percent of the work, nets about 25 pounds a week when all is said and done, but takes down a bottle of whiskey and, as a special treat, occasionally gets to sleep with my wife.”

“That’s disgraceful, Paddy,” said the inspector. “I need to interview the half-wit.”

“Well,” said Paddy, “you’re looking at him.”
Is there any reason for the ACT Party to still exist?
Umm, who the hell is Lyn Moore?
I suspect some ACT supporters are aware that their party has lost it's way, The challenge for Libz is to attract some of these disenchanted members.
The movie An Officer and a Gentleman springs to mind.

I can see Nats and Act supporter knock on the libz door and say:

http://tinyurl.com/4azpc2y

I consider the libertarianz platform an excellent choice to place a protest vote.
i think the libz should stick to cultural activism and forget about the political side.
Here here! Great (sad) piece.I am no longer a member of ACT because they are no longer stand for anything.
@Mike: And what should ACT stick to? Foreign travel and dance competitions?
They are the best of a very bad lot and a vote for them is probably just an exercise in straw-grasping but I don't see anything more substantial.
If you want to vote for someone to the right of National who actually has a chance of getting into parliament, who should we vote for then? Who will vote Libz until they manage to outpoll Bill&Ben or McGSP Party.

Personally I think not voting is the next best option.
Looking at the photo, I'd say the answer is: "to eat."
Actually, out of all the parties in theis parliament I mean real parties, not Dung and Neanderthon), the ACT party has failed the most when measured against its stated principles.

The other parties have imploded, acted like drug fuelled psychos, pushed for apartheid, lied massively to keep power for its own sake, promised to own everything and everybody etc etc etc.... business as usual in other words.

What has the ACT party doen in the face of all this? Nothing. Nothing at all. They have just shut down and gone to sleep. zzzzzzzzzz... zzzzzzzzzzz....... zzzzzzzzzzzz

I think its time for me to vote Libz. I don't agree with everything they say, but Geez mate, at least they are pointed in the right direction and they seem to have something between their collective ears.

I've even got a sign-off line for them. "A Point in the right direction" There ya go, guys.... a freebie from Dave Mann :-)
I'm no fan of ACT and din't vote for them but the libz are better off educating people and changing the culture first. politics comes last.
@V

"Not voting is the best option"

Mate, I disagree with you. Not voting will be high-jacked by politicians making up reasons on why voters din't turn out. Besides, a low turnout these days is considered normal and hardly a protest.

Forget about if the Libz can get into parliament. Just use them as a platform to have your protest vote heard. If libz even get 2% of the votes it will send a louder signal to the established parties than an increase of 2% of no voters.

"Vote Libz because you got nowhere else to go"

http://tinyurl.com/4azpc2y
Quite. A vote for National is a vote for do nothing, keep most of what Labour did and do nothing. So that's pointless.

A vote for ACT is to collude with that and deliver next to nothing.

Libertarianz getting 5% or a seat is a tall order by any stretch, but if it got 1-2% it would send a message to ACT in particular that it had gone so far off course that it needed to refocus and regroup.

Those thinking that is a wasted vote should consider the alternatives, whereas those who disagree with some policies (e.g. drugs or immigration or whatever), will note that Libertarianz is not going to govern after this election, but it can influence the direction of politics.

Meanwhile the only others passionate about politics are those who want more government either under environmental or racist credentials.

So, critics of Libertarianz on the "right", where else will you go?
This rationale reads pretty well for me:

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/thoughts-on-freedom-i-wont-vote/
Pete, if everyone from The Libz joined with ACT then I’m sure some of what you preach would come through in their policy. Perhaps I’m reading you guys wrong but the tenant of your parties rhetoric is: it’s all or nothing. Politics in New Zealand, for better or worse, is all about pragmatism – the biggest pragmatist being our PM. I am sure ACT would welcome an approach to join forces. ACT have infact tried to get its policies through Parliament. The first one that comes to mind is bulk funding for schools, meaning a school board could pay the better teachers more. The only 5 politicians that voted for that were from ACT. The same five were the only ones who wanted to reduce the Youth rates and get kids into jobs, off the dole. I can provide other bills that ACT proposed and were defeated if you like? They did manage to persuade other parties about the merits of ‘Three Strikes’. So ACT has probably boxed according to its weight in a Parliament where centralist policies are seen are the only way to survive. Your report is very disingenuous given the realities of ‘middle of the road’ Kiwi voters. Paul (from down South)